Why I Run
The remarkable journey of the ordinary runner
By Mark Sutcliffe
Great River Media, Inc. | Ottawa
Why I Run: The Remarkable Journey of the Ordinary Runner
by Mark Sutcliffe
Copyright 2011 Mark Sutcliffe
All rights reserved
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-0616-9
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.
About the author
Mark Sutcliffe is a writer, broadcaster and entrepreneur who lives in Ottawa with his wife, Ginny, and their children, Erica, Jack and Kate.
Mark is the founder of iRun, Canada’s most popular running magazine and website. He hosts iRun’s weekly radio show and podcast and has written regularly about running for more than five years in the Ottawa Citizen and on his blog at iRun.ca.
A runner since 1998, he ran his first half-marathon in 2003 and his first marathon in 2004. He has completed thirteen marathons and has raised more than $50,000 for local and national charities through running and other fundraising efforts.
Mark is also an accomplished print, radio and television journalist. He writes two columns per week in the Citizen, and hosts the Chat Room, a top-rated morning talk show on Ottawa’s news-talk radio station 580 CFRA; The Week, a national Sunday morning political television show on CPAC; and Talk Ottawa, a local-issues program airing three times a week on Rogers Television.
Mark is the CEO of Great River Media Inc., which publishes iRun, the Ottawa Business Journal, the Kitchissippi Times community newspaper and several other publications.
Mark was recently named volunteer fundraiser of the year at the Ottawa Philanthropy Awards and volunteer of the year by the Great Canadian Theatre Company.
Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell
I started running when I was twelve because I wanted to run races. At that age, it seemed to me to be the point. The summer before I turned thirteen I remember running up and down a farmer’s track, behind our house, in competition with my brother and my father. We would stagger each person’s starting point, according to some elaborate calculation of individual handicap, and time each interval with a big, old-fashioned stopwatch. My goal, at first, was to beat my brother. Then it was to beat my father. And then, when I entered high school and ran track and cross-country, it was to beat as many people as possible in my age group. Running was a competitive activity, like Monopoly or playing cards, for which the only appropriate goal was victory. Once, after winning a cross-country race in high school, I remember my coach asking me if I liked running, and I was utterly bewildered by the question. I had won, hadn’t I? And I won a lot in those years — local races, provincial races — and that was always my answer. Until, at the grand old age of fifteen, I abruptly stopped winning — and all of a sudden I had to decide how I really felt.
In the pages that follow, Mark Sutcliffe will tell you stories about his own running experiences. Superficially, they are nothing at all like mine. He came to running late. I started early. He runs marathons. I was a miler as a kid, and to this day regard races at lengths greater than ten kilometres to be acts of lunacy. We actually went running once and, predictably, he would have been happier going longer and slower and I would have been happier going shorter and faster. But beneath those surface differences, our stories — like all running stories — are very similar. They are all reflections on running’s great paradox: that this most elemental and primal of human activities is also deeply (and occasionally frustratingly) complex.
How, for example, could I not know whether I liked running? Hockey players don’t wonder whether they like hockey. Of course, they like hockey. Hockey’s great virtue is that it is inherently likeable. Running is not. It is painful and demanding and difficult and frustrating. I did not run for another three years, after my peak at fifteen. Then I began again, in fits and starts, through my twenties and early thirties. But each comeback attempt would founder on the question of why. Remind me why again I’m killing myself in the pouring rain, on some lonely road? Slowly, though, over the course of many miles, I began to work out my answer. I began to realize that something that was painful and demanding and difficult and frustrating could also be beautiful and incredibly satisfying — not in spite of its pain and difficulty but because of it: that those things that come with effort and sacrifice are infinitely more meaningful as a result. What I did not grasp until I was much older was how miraculous running is. You don’t see it at fourteen or fifteen, when physical activity is a given. But now, in my mid-forties, I see it plain as day: that a fully grown adult can go out and run continuously and happily for forty-five minutes is something that — every time I do it — never ceases to astound me.
Am I sounding like one of those tiresome running gurus? Perhaps. And do all runners think of running this way? Maybe not. I suspect that anyone capable of running forty-two kilometres — like Mark — is a bit less conflicted about this particular form of human activity. But I think Mark would agree — and I hope you do as well as you read through this marvellous collection of essays — there is much to be said, and much to be learned, from the deceptively simple act of putting on a pair of training shoes and venturing out onto the roads. Enjoy.
Introduction
iRun because it has changed my life! Rebecca Brown, Ontario
One night not too long ago, my wife, Ginny, and I were lying in bed, having one of our regular discussions to sort out who was going to do what and when. I was providing details on the small number of available spots in my schedule that were left over after my two main activities in life, work and training, when she said rather bluntly, “Running is non-negotiable for you.”
As a chronic procrastinator who has sometimes struggled with commitment, and who fears letting running and other priorities slip if I lose control over my time, I took it as a compliment.
I’m fairly certain, however, she didn’t intend it as one. It wasn’t said with a tone that suggested, “Hey, running is non-negotiable for you – way to go!” or “One of the things I love about you is that running is non-negotiable for you.”
To be honest, it sounded more like, “Why haven’t you cleaned out the basement yet?”
But considering one of my greatest fears is not having the discipline to stay on track with something important, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud that I’m inflexible about my running habit.
I chose to keep that reaction to myself, however. Ginny is a runner too, and one of my favourite runs ever was finishing a half-marathon by her side in 2008. But managing our busy lives and giving birth to our kids have made it tough for her to be as unbendable about running as I am.
Through running and many other activities, I’ve learned this much: I don’t have a dimmer switch. It’s either on or off, rarely in between. So when I commit to something, I go all in. And I check myself regularly against the risk of an excuse creeping in that will derail my plans.
On days I don’t run, I’m already thinking ahead to when I will fit in my training the next day. I’m not sure if that’s discipline; it feels more like anxiety that I will fall behind.
From experience, I know all the justifications you can employ to delay, avoid, ignore, postpone, cancel: it’s a bad week, I’m busy with work, it’s too cold, it’s too hot, I’m not feeling well, I’ll start next week.
I fear the slippery slope that starts with just one cancelled run. It starts with a week when I don’t get in